American Theatre

American Theatre is a magazine containing news, features and opinions on American and international theatre. Published six times a year by the Theatre Communications Group, this periodical was founded in 1984.Subjects for American Theatre include drama and theatre. Nicole Estvanik Taylor is the Managing Editor and Jim O' Quinn is the Editor-in-Chief.

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Articles from Vol. 20, No. 8, October

A Civilizing Pestilence: Malvern, PA

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THEY SAY THAT FALLING IN LOVE IS wonderful, but who are they, exactly? And how can we get them to shut up? In her hilarious, baleful new play Midons, which runs through Oct. 12 at People's Light &amp; Theatre Company, Lillian...

Adam Bock: What Can We Imagine? an Inventive Playwright Depends on Collaborators for the Finishing Touch

"Hmm. What would happen," muses playwright Adam Bock, "if a guy fell in love with a shark?" He's talking about an actual shark shark. As in that Edward Albee play, if you substitute a fish fantasy for the mammal one. "That's one of the great things...

These are intoxicating times for Manhattan Theatre Club artistic director Lynne Meadow. At a gala ceremony on Oct. 27 she will be presented with the 2003 Mr. Abbott award, issued annually by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (in conjunction...

Across the country: The economic outlook may still be shaky, and rising production costs show no signs of easing, but theatres in every major city in the U.S. are entering a growth stage. In Washington, D.C., the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,...

David Edgar is playing for both sides. I'm not talking about Republicans and Democrats, although his new double-header Continental Divide does offer perspectives from both political camps. No, the divide that Edgar is straddling is theatre's classic...

Descents into the Maelstrom: New Productions Plunge into the Murky Depths of Poe's Writings-And His Psyche

"The soul is a cypher, in the sense of a cryptograph," wrote the author and amateur cryptographer Edgar Allan Poe, a man whose feverish life--a chronicle of obsessions, depressions, hysterical gestures and determinedly self-destructive behavior--goes...

Anticipation: That's what this Season Preview issue is all about, from its jaunty cover image of three elegantly bedecked actresses from the Alliance Theatre Company of Atlanta's upcoming production of Regina Taylor's Crowns, to its final page, a light-hearted...

Arts fundraiser Amy Sullivan took the reins of Connecticut's Eugene O'Neill Theater Center as executive director in August, replacing Howard Sherman. Sullivan comes to the O'Neill from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, where she was vice president...

From the Ashes, a New South Africa: Reflections of a Nation's Metamorphosis in a Giant Festival of Arts

Viewed against the usual pace of history, the transformation of South Africa has been as rapid as it has been inspiring: from Nelson Mandela's 1990 release after 27 years of imprisonment, to 1994's democratic elections, to a new constitution in 1996....

As American Theatre doffs its cap to the new season, it seemed appropriate to focus on a show that is buoyed by a particularly heady atmosphere--and by heady we mean heads with hats on them. Regina Taylor's Crowns, a theatrical and musical celebration...

Watch out America: Heather Woodbury has your number, and she's broadcasting it from a small stage near you. That stage may be bare, but by no means is it barren--there are scores of imaginary beings whom she channels in her one-woman marathon, What...

IF YOU HAD TOLD BRIDGETTE WIMBERLY a decade ago that someday she would be a playwright, "I would have said that someday I'd be going to Mars, too," she says. At last report, Wimberly was still firmly on planet Earth, but the former medical researcher...

In the Realm of the Voices: Composer Philip Glass Sets Two David Henry Hwang Plays to Plangent Music

Most composers might consider writing music a singularly solitary, even lonely endeavor. Not Philip Glass. The popular minimalist is the king of collaborators. For more than four decades, he has been writing music for films, plays, dances and operas,...

The ambitious playwright Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo) has a busy schedule these days. Two of his plays--Twentieth Century, his adaptation of the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur comedy set on the titular train, and a bright new comedy...

No More Clowning Around: For Vaudeville Clown and Mime Artist Bill Irwin, Writing Serious Plays Means Reaching into a New Bag of Tricks

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Aman floats in the air, hovering for a moment, seemingly suspended between two worlds. He is attempting to leap from one to the other ... although he won't, can't completely let go of the first one. The man's home world is...

Only days after Molora, Bishop Tutu appears on a panel addressing "South Africa's Ongoing Struggle for Justice and Reconciliation." He is also launching his new book, No Future Without Forgiveness. A phalanx of cameramen and microphones heightens the...

San Francisco; Windsor Locks, Conn.; and New York City: In June, just after Broadway renamed the Martin Beck Theatre on West 45th Street the AI Hirschfeld Theatre, a retrospective exhibition of the works of the late "Line King" was unveiled at the...

since 1949 2003-2004 Course Offerings Two and a half year conservatory (September 2003-September 2005) This full time, 30 hour per week program combines a world class faculty, the highest artistic and theatrical standards and ideals, and 2...

The New Actors Workshop; Two Year Professional Actor Training Program: Founded by Three Master Teacher/directors

Earn a certificate or Master of Arts Degree Low Interest Loans available to all qualified students How We Are Different * Our small size creates an intimacy that facilitates your growth as an actor. * Our continuity of instructors permits...

Once again, it's time for our annual Season Preview issue: Listen closely, and you're likely to hear pages flipping as avid theatre-followers rifle through the magazine to find the always-anticipated list of the 10 most-produced plays of the coming...

TWELVE ARTISTS FROM AROUND THE country have been selected to participate in the latest round of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program, which benefits early-career directors and designers who seek a career in the American not-for profit professional...

MICHAEL HEALEY's The Drawer Boy, about an actor who changes the lives of two Canadian farmers, will be the most-produced play at TCG theatres nationwide in 2003-04. The Toronto-based playwright and actor is also the author of Kicked, which won Canada's...

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To accompany this year's Season Preview, we asked more than three dozen theatre professionals from across the U.S. a leading question: "What (excluding your own work or things scheduled at your own theatre) are you most excited...

Winner Takes All: An Actress Rides Shotgun on the Rough-and-Tumble Development of David Edgar's Epic Continental Divide

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE FIRST TIME I MET DAVID EDGAR WAS IN 1980. I WAS A YOUNG actress; he was a young playwright from Birmingham, England; and the Eureka Theatre Company, where I worked in San Francisco, was about to present the U.S. premiere...